Stars
by The Last Letter
Summary: Six years later, Jude sits at Connor's headstone, recounting the events that led to them being in the graveyard.


_I lit a fire with the love you left behind_

_And it burned wild and crept up the mountain side_

_I followed your ashes into outer space_

_I can't look out the window, I can't look at this place._

Here's what I think. I think love is eternal. Not in the sense that if you love someone once you have to love them forever; that would be like saying love is an obligation, and that's not what love is. Love is eternal in the way that if you love once, then that love exists forever. It's kind of like karma, I guess, because even if the love isn't directed at a certain person anymore, it exists in the universe, still. There's still vibes of love floating around, curling into the ground, rising into the sky … Just because you don't love the person anymore, doesn't mean that when you loved them it wasn't real, because that love was real and it's seeping into the universe better than anything else.

That might sound crazy … No, I know it sounds crazy. I don't know if I even described it right. But, somehow, I still think that you'd understand it perfectly. You always seemed to understand me, even when I didn't understand me. You always knew me. I think you'd still know me now, if you were given the chance too. I think that you'd recognize me, despite all that time that has passed. Because I think that our souls, our true selves, are the same no matter what.

Back to love, though. I started thinking about that after you left. I started thinking about how you were my best friend and how much I loved you. I started thinking about how I was your best friend and how much you loved me, even though your heart was done beating; how your body was no longer there to pump love and life into the world.

After you left, I would walk the same paths that we always would. Somehow, I thought if I traced the same streets, the same grains of sand, that I would come across you again. I thought if I climbed up the tree in the backyard, nestled myself against the trunk, soon you would follow me as you had so many times before … Needless to say, it didn't happen. You were still gone, headed off to place that you couldn't come back from.

But even though I didn't find you, I still found pieces of you. I was tripping over your memory every time I turned around; I thought I heard your voice, once or twice, carried by the wind. And that's when my theory about love emerged. We loved one another, not in the way your dad always accused us of, but we did love each other. And I could still feel that, as if the places that we had spent time together had absorbed how much we had cared about one another and, even though you weren't around to love me anymore, your love was still sitting in the backyard, waiting for me to find it again.

I also think that my love will find you, wherever you are. I don't know if I believe in heaven but I know that I believe in something. I believe in a beautiful place and I think you're there. I think that, if I remember you enough and I love you enough (which I do, Connor, I do love you enough) then you'll be able to feel it and it'll feel like you're here again.

Forgive my rambling, please. It's only to you that I'll admit this, but I've been drinking. I know I shouldn't, not with all of the problems that alcohol has caused in my life, but I couldn't help it. It's been six years of staring at your headstone and I don't know how much longer I can take it.

I miss you.

And even though I don't want to die, I want to be with you.

_I can't look at the stars_

_They make me wonder where you are_

_Stars, up on heaven's boulevard_

_And if I know you at all, I know you've gone too far_

_So I, I can't look at the stars._

I wonder how much you're aware of what it's been like here. Do you know that Stef was the one who found you? Were you there when she told me what happened?

I was supposed to see you the day after. You were supposed to come over after school, even though we'd spent the day before together. I remember that I was in the kitchen, helping Lena with dinner. Stef called to tell us that she'd be late, that there was a call. I remember that I didn't think much of it – I was thinking of you, of the video game that you were supposed to be bringing over. I find it funny now that I don't even remember the name of that game … I should, though. At least, I think I should.

It was after midnight when she came home. I know this, because she woke me up at 12: 43. There were tears in her eyes and she told me that there had been accident; that it had been you. I said I wanted to see you, I thought you were only in the hospital. But then she hugged me, so tight that I could feel the imprint of her arms hours after, and before she even said the words I knew. _I knew_. But it didn't lessen the blow when she kissed my cheek and said, _"Jude, he's gone."_

I wonder if you were aware of how much I cried for you in that moment. Of how I bawled until my throat hurt and my eyes felt raw. I woke up the house because I screamed your name and it felt like it was tearing at my throat.

We were fourteen. You weren't supposd to be dead.

Stef had said accident. But it wasn't an accident, not really. Because the next afternoon, I made her tell me what had happened. I made her confess the details of the awful scene that she had been called to, because I couldn't live without knowing what your last moments had looked like. I couldn't live without knowing exactly what had happened to you.

Only two people know, truly know, what happened to you.

Both of you are dead now.

But the story she told me went like this, as shown to them by the security tapes: you were with your mother. She stopped at a gas station. She went inside to pay and you went with her (_if only you hadn't gone with her, you'd still be here now)._ You went straight to the back of the store, to the slushie machine. Your mother went to the counter to pay. The employee was already dead when you walked into the store. The man who had killed him, who would eventually kill your mother and you, was still standing behind the counter. He shot your mother. You immediately started to run from the back of the store toward the door. You didn't make it. He killed you. And then he killed himself.

I saw the security tape when I was seventeen. I watched you try to run away. I saw you start to cry as he pointed the gun toward you. I thought about stopping the tape there, of closing my eyes and pretending that you managed to get away, but I couldn't do that. I let the tape play. I watched him pull the trigger. I watched your t-shirt turn red; I watched you stop moving. I played that part over and over again, staring at your chest until I had memorized the exact time that you took your last breath.

_(6:42:11 p.m. October 13__th__ 2014.)_

I let the tape continue to play. I needed to see that man (I refuse to acknowledge that he has a name; that he had anything remotely human about him) die. I watched him walk to you. He touched his hand in your blood, he touched your face, leaving red smears across your cheeks. I wanted to reach into the tape, tear his hand away from you. He screamed and, as I watched him scream, I wondered why. He chose to kill you; he had no right to show emotion over you, not when you were stolen from people who loved you. I watched him turn his gun into his mouth; I watched his blood and brains coat the floor.

And then I burnt the tape. I only watched the entire scene once, but that was enough.

I don't know I was looking for when I watched it. I know I didn't find it. Watching it didn't bring me peace and it certainly bring me closure. I don't know what I expected it to do but it didn't fulfill it. If I had to guess what I wanted, I would guess that I wanted something to fill the gap in me, but seeing your last moments wouldn't do that. Only watching you have future moments could do that.

But that would never happen now.

_All those times we looked up at the sky_

_Looking out so far, it felt like we could fly_

_And now I'm all alone in the dark of night_

_And the moon is shining, but I can't see the light._

The last time I saw you, we went camping. It was only in your backyard, but you have a pretty big backyard, and your mom didn't bother us at all, so it really felt like it was just the two of us. The tent was a challenge. We had the poles scattered all over the lawn, trying to figure it out. I remember that I fell; I stepped on one of them and rolled, face planting. You were laughing so much I couldn't decide if there was any sincerity in your "are you okay?" … but, of course there was. You really did care about me.

We eventually got the tent set up, though. And it stayed up throughout the night, even though there was a sliver of doubt in my mind, about as large as the sag on the sides of the tent. I thought for sure we'd wake up with the canvas falling in on us, the pole that I had stepped on coming in to get revenge.

Our next step, after the tent, was the campfire, which was the easy part. We had it up and going in just a few minutes, and we spent most of our evening sitting next to one another by the campfire, cooking hot dogs and making s'mores. Though, eventually, we did get bored of hot dogs and marshmallows, and we snitched different things from your kitchen, like bread and popcorn (which all turned out surprisingly well).

When we got full, we lay next to the campfire, still needing it for warmth, as the night had turned rather cool. We both had our hands tucked behind our heads, our elbows out to the sides so that our arms were touching. When I think back to the last time I saw you, this is what stands out in my head, this very scene.

I remember the exact shade of the inky blue sky; I remember how round the moon was, although it was waning from being full. The stars were out, twinkling in full force. It was this I was looking at, as we spoke. It felt to me like your voice was weaving itself around the stars, floating to space. I laughed at myself for that thought, and I turned my head to look at you. You had always looked older than me (but this was because I look young, not because you looked old) but you seemed almost grown up, the way the fire cast light on your face, shadowing half of you. I could only see the glint of one of your eyes, see one of your lips twisting with words.

The last memory seems almost cruel to me. I thought of you in the stars, and the day after, you were stolen from me, rocketed to heaven and so now I never look up during the night. I thought of you as looking older, but I never got to see you that way.

I'm twenty now, Connor.

I guess I finally look older.

_And I can't look at the stars_

_They make me wonder where you are_

_Stars, up on heaven's boulevard_

_And if I know you at all, I know you've gone too far_

_So I, I can't look at the stars._

_Stars_

I spend a lot of time thinking about who you would be, if you had made it this far, or further, like you should have. Would you and I still have been best friends? What would you have gone for university for? Would you have even gone for university? Who would you have fallen in love with? There are questions that fill my brain and drive me mad, because I'll never get to know the answers. I'll never get to know if you would have been a father or what you would even look like now. Though I can guess on the last one, I'll never get to know for sure.

I like to think that you and I would still be friends, best friends, in fact. No matter how much I try, I just can't see the two of us growing apart. You were always there for me, and I was always there for you. We had our difficulties, as friends are wont to do, but I couldn't see us ever encountering something that we couldn't resolve, that we wouldn't grow past.

I wonder if we would have ended up in the same university.

I wonder, I wonder …

It's not fair. It's not fair that I never got to know you past the age of fourteen; that no one did. It's unfair that you were stolen to the afterlife and that nothing can bring you back.

My roommate at university, Alex, he moved here from New York for university. He calls his best friend (they've known each other since they were seven) four times a week as per his routine, although there's a lot of spontaneous calls. I think that, had life taken us miles apart, we would have been like that. When I still had you, alive, I couldn't go a day without talking to you, because, in the sea of my big family, in the midst of all the drama that surrounded my life and theirs, you were the steady constant that I could hold on to.

I guess, since I still come here and pour out my heart to your headstone, you're still the steady constant for me to hold on to.

_Stars, they make me wonder where you are_

_Stars, up on heaven's boulevard_

_And if I know you at all, I know you've gone too far_

I have something to confess; the reason why I've sat here so long and have recounted this back and forth. Surely you didn't need to hear it; surely you were already aware of what I do, of what I did, of what I think, and what I thought. I think, from that beautiful place in the stars that you escaped to, you know what I'm doing here on earth and you're here with me … Sometimes I think I can feel it.

I came to say goodbye. I think you must have known all along that's what I was coming to say; that I was here to tell you I was leaving. It doesn't make it any easier to say those words, though.

I told you goodbye when I left your house that morning, waving and telling you I'd see you the day after. I told you goodbye the night I learned of your death. I told you goodbye the night of the wake, the last time that I saw your face (although there was something decidedly un-you about the face in the coffin). I told you goodbye when we buried you. I tell you goodbye every time I leave your headstone behind and I walk away.

But this time is different, and you know that.

I'm taking a year abroad to study. I'm going to London. And (I haven't come out and officially told anyone else this yet, but I think they all know it), I don't plan on coming back. It wasn't an easy decision; it's not something that spontaneously jumped into my heart, but it's what I have to go. It's the path that I'm supposed to follow. I don't want to leave you behind, with no way to come back to visit you and talk to you; to leave behind the ground that we soaked with our memories.

If I'm right, you're going to be there for me anyway. If I'm right, you'll hop from star to star and you'll be able to follow me there.

I hope that's true.

It's almost … comforting, to think that you can still share in my experiences. That, although life has left you behind, that you are still around to be a part of my life; in the present, in the now. I don't want to think of you as a part of my past, of something for _me_ to leave behind, because you're on my mind every single day. I can't leave you behind, and I can't forget you. I wouldn't want to.

The fact of the matter is, that I just miss you. And I don't want to walk away. I don't want to move away and give up sitting here and talking to you, because I feel like this is the only way to reach you. I know that your spirit exists somewhere else, but I'm still unsure if your spirit can hear me, can be next to me.

I think that's part of the reason I can't look at the night sky anymore.

I'm absolutely terrified that I won't see your words dripping from the stars, your face reflected against the waning moon. I'm terrified you're lost and that I'll never find you again.

…

Goodbye.

…

I love you.

…

Please don't forget me.

_So I can't look at the stars._

**I wrote this quickly for an anon on tumblr, so it hasn't been edited yet. I'll go over it sometime in the future.**

**I don't own anything recognizable. The song is **_**Stars**_** by **_**Grace Potter & The Nocturnals.**_

**~TLL~**


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